Recycled Materials X Cosmic Creative

Wow. It’s almost June! Time is flying by this year; I have loads of content coming soon but this post is dedicated to my favourite recycled materials to use within the Cosmic Creative pieces. 

Should I spare you of any rubbish puns and get on with the post? 

I’m by no means endorsing smoking (so I will not be naming the brands involved); however if you do already smoke, you’ll be aware of how much litter it produces from just the packaging of the items.

 A lot of the packaging are made of cardboard and it got me thinking how wasteful and damaging it is for the environment, for this to be binned so frequently. I’d also seen people do junk journaling pieces before so I  guess this concept/thought process was my starting point for using recycled materials for the backgrounds.

Stuck together papers from wet weather conditions can be a real pain, meaning the pack is no longer usable for its intended purpose...Get some PVA glue and watch them transform into a tissue paper texture for your backgrounds! 

                                                      

Another favourite type of recycled materials to use is ‘Junk Mail’ items such as leaflets and go local magazines. Free art supplies delivered straight to your door - not bad, huh? 

You can also use other packaging items for different textures...experiment with what you already have available as it saves the environment and can make for some funky elements to a piece!

Have you tried working with any recycled materials in your art before?  

Till next time,

Stevie x 

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Cosmic Creative X Art Therapy

My art teacher in school once said 'you can’t just create art you have to plan it, try out multiple different versions and experiments first'...oh how they were so wrong!

I’m not sure how other people go about making their art therapy pieces but I thought I’d share how I do mine. 

For me at least...Art therapy is about going with the flow, using colours initially drawn to and doing what comes naturally; working with your emotions which can be such a powerful thing for any mood really -  if you just let go and do it for the process, rather than the typical perfectionist approach.

I worked with biro and watercolour originally as I liked how expressive watercolour could be.

I also experimented with adding a few re-cycled ‘junk’ elements to the pieces in my first book as I’d seen people do art ‘junk’ journaling and mixed media journaling pieces previously...and it just sorta developed from there; I now use Re-cycled materials in all of my pieces for my backgrounds and additional 3d elements (Amazon packages are a favourite to use recently!!)

I find biro easier to initially draw with however I did just draw with sharpie for a bit but I now use it to outline and finish off the piece. 

I also discovered paint pens (which were was a turning point that really developed art style)

Within my art therapy work I like to use quotes or song lyrics that represent my mood and I also like to do motivational ones to aid with the personal growth process.  ”Healing is done through layers” and that is the entire premise of my art style. 

 I’ve got a few blog posts coming soon of the methods and processes I use for Cosmic Creative such as; my favourite re-cycled materials to use and product reviews.

What art styles have you tried in the past?

 Have you tried (or will you be) producing art for the process rather than perfectionist approach?

Till next time,

Stevie x

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Art Therapy X My Story

As I previously mentioned in my Life Update post, everything got west and it happened so rapid; it was one extreme event after another after another and I eventually built up the courage to admit I needed help of some kind.

I didn’t want to go down the medication route - instead I had ‘Cognitive Behavioural Therapy’ sessions; which are aimed on showing you practical ways to improve your mind state on a daily basis, by recognizing and learning to manage negative mental health patterns...ultimately changing the way you think and behave.

Counselling or Therapy really isn’t what you think, it’s more of a conversation without opinion based judgement; just being understood and asked the right questions to release the emotions which aids/begins the process of healing...it’s something you have to work through on your own nobody can ‘fix’ you, can only be guided in the process which is what CBT is all about.

Some of the most useful advice I was given was: 

Life’s like a heartbeat *or a rollercoaster if you like them* It goes up and down and there’s no magical cure for that but everything happens for a reason and without the downs you can’t appreciate the up’s!

Also there is 3 parts to everyday; morning, noon and evening – just because had a shit hour in the morning doesn’t mean it’s a bad day, you can have an amazing evening still...it’s all about changing your perspective! 

The first step of CBT was writing a list of worries and going through can you change it (no don’t worry, if yes – what can be done about it) and while that was helpful, my issue wasn’t just being worried; life was/had been on a negative spiral in every way possible and I didn’t know how to get back on track.

I felt it might be easier to portray through art what was going on/ the emotions as it was hard to explain wagwan sometimes...we spoke about art therapy which I could be doing in my own time to pair with the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy sessions.  

The combination of Art Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy was LIFE CHANGING!!! It’s amazing how effective it was for pin pointing what was going wrong exactly and how to change it. I really am eternally grateful, I wholeheartedly believed there was no way of turning my life back around.

SO, I guess that’s kinda how Cosmic Creative was started!

If you want to know how you can create your own art therapy pieces I have a post coming soon!

Till next time,

Stevie x 

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